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Having not worked for a few weeks over the holidays, compounded by the fact that I had moved into a new apartment, I found my bank account pretty low on funds (read: overdrawn) in early January 2011. I had $70-ish left on my Capital One credit card limit and 2 holiday gift cards to get gas for my car, a U-Haul rental truck and enough Honey Nut Cheerios to last me until the next paycheck.
By the end of the week, the Capital One card was maxed out and the Visa gift card was empty. I had no idea what was left on my AmEx gift card, but it wasn’t much. Wanting a snack, I wandered into my new neighborhood 7-11 and bought a Tear N’ Share size Peanut M&M’s (PS I was not sharing this shit. I was broke… Like, “Mickey and the Beanstalk”-broke) and Sugar-Free Red Bull.As I checked out, I warned the Indian-American guy behind the counter (not to be confused with American Indian) that I only had a gift card and I had no clue what the balance left on it was. He coldly grabbed the card and said “Welp… Let’s try it,” and gave it a swipe across his register. We both stood there wordlessly while the machine sent and received information for what seemed like 30 minutes. My fingers were tapping out an imaginary telegraph to no one on the counter while my mind played the music from “Press Your Luck”. “No Whammies… Big Bucks… and STOP”.
I couldn’t see the display of the machine clearly so I waited for some kind of sign from the cashier. As soon as he got the “APPROVED” display he looked up at me and with a deadpan face said…
“Ballin’.”.
I laughed at the genius sarcasm of his accidental club lingo and the $4.24 worth of mass-produced unhealthy snack food was mine all mine.
I still have no clue what’s left on the AmEx gift card but it’s still taking up space in my wallet.
